I have also been the victim of family violence, by my second wife who I met in 2005. I owned my own house at the time and had been separated and divorced from my first wife for many years. My children from my first marriage 15 year-old girl and 14 year-old boy were a large part of my life and spent a lot of time with me. I decided I wanted to find a partner so I put an add in one of the online dating sites and that's how I met my second wife.

She was very down to earth and we hit it off from day one, during the first few months of my new relationship, my first wife asked me to take the children permanently as she had become quite ill and was having difficulty with the children. I discussed this with my new partner and she suggested we all move in to her rented rural property.

My new partner had a habit of smoking dope on occasion and had a healthy appetite for alcohol also, in particular cheap champagne. It did not represent a problem at this time or so I thought.

We moved in and all was well for a while. My new partner was good with my children but not so successful with her only child a son who was about 12 at that time he had started experimenting with dope and alcohol and was failing at school. He was suspended many times and eventually was asked to leave and went to live with his father.

My partner became pregnant a short time after and although I was in my late 40s and she was early 40s this was our future. We married while she was in early pregnancy. Things took a down turn during pregnancy and never recovered. We had a beautiful daughter who is now 8-years-old.

After the child was born my wife suffered great personal anguish I believe she did suffered from post-natal depression although to my knowledge she never was treated for it.

She began smoking dope daily and drinking to get drunk daily. We argued constantly most times ending with her telling me to get out of HER house. I could not do this to my new baby so I stuck in there.

The arguments continued and she took to abusing my older children as well as me. My older daughter moved out not long after she finished schooling. My son went to university and also moved out a year or so later. That left me with my wife and baby girl.

My wife had the sex drive of a porno queen and clearly I could not keep up. She constantly abused me for not wanting to have sex with her, called me a eunuch and talked about her past lovers being better then me.

I was depressed by this and saw my doctor asking for Viagra so I could be a stud. He was concerned that I was being downtrodden and asked my how I felt about this. He also gave me Viagra. For those that have never tried it let me tell you I works a treat but after a while I got sick of it and stopped taking it. My wife then asked me how I felt if she were to take on a lesbian lover.

We continued to fight regularly with her busting a metal rake across my head one night then calling the police! I was bleeding when the cops showed up. The police didn't know what to do so they asked if there was somewhere else I could go for the night, I ended up staying on the property in another building. Can you imagine if this had been the other way round. I would have been arrested and charged.

My wife started smoking synthetic cannabis and that was the straw that broke the camels back. She was out of control and seeing councillors and doctors to combat depression, anxiety and god knows what else.

She became delusional more aggressive and psychotic. She threatened my oldest daughter will a baseball bat on one occasion. My daughter called the police.. I made no statement as I didn't want anyone to be involved with police. No action was taken on this occasion with the police saying as they left that if they had to return someone would be arrested they looked in my wife's direction.

The same continued on until one night after she smoked some dope and got drunk and abused me, I told my wife I was leaving her and taking my then 6 year old daughter with me.

She attacked me, punched me in the family jewels hung on a squeezed them like she was possessed we fell to the floor she banged her head in the process. She then left leaving my daughter and myself in the house and called police from somewhere up the road. Keep in mind she was drunk and on drugs and the police noted she was effected by alcohol.

She told the 000 line that her husband had beat her repeatedly and that there were firearms in the house. Police came I was arrested my wife led the police to a locked shed on the property where she knew I had firearms locked in cabinets and gave the keys to police. I was charged with assault and unlicensed firearms and put in jail. An AVO was placed on me by police.

I spent 6 months in jail while appearing in different courts to have these matters heard. I was refused bail. The firearms were not registered and I was unlicensed they were locked inside metal lockers in a locked building on the property nowhere near the house. There were no firearms in the house. I used to be a licensed shooter but had let my license lapse many years ago. My wife knew I had these firearms and I had told her not long before this incident that I wanted to renew my license or get rid of them.

Eventually I had my day in court after 6 months imprisonment the charges were broken up into 2 separate hearings the first one was for firearms. I was given a 2 year prison sentence for the firearms to be paroled after 6 months which I had served. I was released from custody. The judges comments were that he found I was a person of good character and had the firearms been found in any other manner it is unlikely I would have received a jail sentence.

The assault charge was heard a month later it was dismissed and thrown out of court so was the AVO the judge commented that my wife's version of events were not believable.

In the time I was in prison my wife attempted (unsuccessfully) to take out AVOS on my oldest daughter and also a personal friend of mine. She also harassed my friends and made up stories about me beating her up, she went as low as to put makeup on her face take selfie photos and post it on Facebook looking like she had done 5 rounds with Muhammad Ali. She carries these images around with her on her mobile phone and shows them to anyone she feels she needs to manipulate, she did it to the police after her case was very quickly proven to be fabrication and thrown out of court she also showed them to a public solicitor who represented her at the family court on one occasion.

I have now way to stop any of this. This is not fair. And it is family violence. No one cares.

While in prison my wife's estranged son broke into my sheds and stole, burnt and destroyed much of my property to the value of over $25k. I had police out to inspect this they will take no action as he says he didn't do it and there is no CCTV evidence. The fact that the police know he had removed my property and occupied my shed with many of his belongings and he had graffitied all over the inside and outside of the sheds using his own name has no consequence.

This is still going on I am now involved with the family court as my wife started proceedings as soon as I was put in jail. She also went for an overseas holiday 1 week after the alleged assault.

She continues to harass me by making false statements to the court, failing to supply information to me as directed by the court and sending me lengthy text and emails which make no sense at all since she claims I am tormenting her!

She recently threatened me in a text and on advice from the domestic violence hotline I took it to police who refused to act on it saying I was not in any physical danger so an AVO was not appropriate.

So there you have it. One rule for boys and one rule for girls and no such thing as equality. Women who know how to play the system have no problem destroying males and it's all geared in there favour.

My cost so far besides my reputation, freedom, business, health and wellbeing is a financial loss of over $250k. I'm still trying to get on with my life and be supportive of my child. It's not over yet and I would like to see some sort of protection made available to men who get set up and crushed by this system that is clearly faulted.

This is a horror story but all true and I bet I'm not the only man who has been treated like this.

Article originally appeared on One in Three Campaign (http://www.oneinthree.com.au/).